{comment_total} Counts Remain After Deleting Comments

Question

I just updated a site from EE1 to EE2 that had pretty much nothing but spam comments. I deleted all the comments with a query:

DELETE FROM exp_comments WHERE status = 'o';

But on the blog listing page, the {comment_total} tag is still showing that comments exist. For example:

<a href="{path='blog/post'}">{comment_total} Comment(s) &raquo;</a>

Returns

4 Comments »

Even though there are no comments in the database for that entry.

I also went into the exp_channels table and set the total_comments column to 0 for the blog channel.

When I upgraded from EE1 to 2, I opted to convert trackbacks to comments, could that be what's causing the phantom comments? There's no exp_trackbacks table anymore, so I'm not sure where they might be hiding.

I guess ultimately what I need to know is where does EE get its comment_total count from?

Answer 1

Have you tried CP > Tools > Data > Recount Statistics?

Answer 2

Total comments are actually stored in the exp_channel_titles data table, so you would either need to use the Recount Statistics Tool, as @Ryan Masuga suggested or set the comment_total field in exp_channel_titles equal to zero, using a MySQL query. The Recount Statistics tool is the easiest method, unless you don't want all comment numbers to be reset.

Answer 3

It's possible the page is cached so it's worth clearing the cache to eliminate that as the issue.

CP Location: Tools ‣ Data ‣ Clear Caching